Geez update, new staff, next issue

Editor and co-founder stays to aid transition

First of all, I’m still here as editor! Last year I tried to “retire” from Geez, but we weren’t able to assemble a new team and solid business plan. So, because this is more than a job for me, and because I have another part-time job to help contribute to household finances, I’ve decided to stick around and take the time needed for a smooth transition.

I’ve always considered this magazine an experiment, one in which you try to practice what you preach. Like, for example, demote our consumer mentality by offering an ad-free periodical. Or avoid cutting more trees by using 100% post-consumer-waste paper. Or, challenge the meritocratic nature of our society (e.g., those who are stronger, more articulate, more talented, or born into privilege get more wealth and social status) by having a flat payscale.

The next step for me in this project is to work myself out of a leadership position. I am heartened by the number of new willing workers that “get it.” And we need to find critical, creative, and responsible ways to engage people through social media and digital devices. We welcome your ongoing suggestions and feedback.

New managing editor

On behalf of the board and co-workers, I’m delighted to welcome Alana Trachenko to the position of managing editor. Alana comes with experience at a university student paper and several years a local reporter at a community paper.

“Reading Geez feels like going to a poetry reading, a university class, and getting coffee with a friend rolled into one. It’s a dream publication to work for in that it makes its readers think and hopefully question some of the messages we’re all exposed to every day,” said Alana when asked what attracted her to the position.

“I’m very excited to join the editorial team at Geez and get a chance to work with the fantastic contributors and staff,” she said. Welcome Alana!

New social media coordinator

Again, with delight and on behalf of the board, I welcome Sarah Ens as the new social media coordinator at Geez magazine. Sarah is a creative-writing graduate from the University of British Columbia and, because this is a part-time position, she also works as an assistant editor at Turnstone Press, a Manitoba-based, independent literary publisher of books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

“I have been a fan and reader of Geez for years, [it] has been both a source of comfort and a call to action for me,” said Sarah.

“The opportunity to market a magazine that engages in critical, counterculture conversations, re-examines easy answers, and amplifies marginalized voices is exciting. I feel that-in part due to social media-the world is becoming more and more polarized and that the efforts Geez makes to straddle boundaries and cross or mend fences are crucial,” she added.

A warm welcome to Sarah!

Upcoming issue

I’m working with Alana and others on the next issue. We’ll explore what it means to be a man and a woman and how those conventions can and should change. Yes, we’ll suggest (actually assume) gender is a construct (thanks Judith Butler), and we’ll explore how we can work towards less-violent, more life-giving performances of manhood, womanhood and gender noncomformity.

That’s it for now.

Sincerely,

Aiden Enns, EditorGeez magazine

*FYI, text on the image above:
Artistic creation is an expression of culture: tradition and lived experience. . . . Culture can be, and is, used as a means of social control. More effective than any army is a shared conception that the way things are is the way things should be. The powers-that-be don’t remain in power by convincing us that they are the answer, but rather that there is no other solution. But culture can be, and is, used as a means of resistance, a place to formulate other solutions. In order to strive for change, you have to first imagine it, and culture is the repository of imagination. – Stephen Duncombe, Cultural Resistance Reader (Verso, 2002)